Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 07/10/2026Miguel Rojas is quietly a hero standing amidst greats. He will not be a hall-of-famer, makes a tiny fraction of some of his underperforming teammates, but boy does he play like a champion, every time he's on the field and in the batters box. He's my favorite Dodger. 110
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 06/10/2026Returning in January 2027. Are you still following or subscribed? 070
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 06/10/2026I was taught Ostrom without Hardin, this was 2000! 120
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 04/10/2026Leaving the Annual General Meeting of the Marc Sanders Foundation and really cool things are going to be happening for philosophy in the next few years. 070
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 02/10/2026I woke up to an email and I think my institution is trolling me. There is a media team writing newsletters and making videos just for the procurement, travel, and real estate admin…at a state university! ucr.bmeurl.co/1439D905ucr.bmeurl.coInsider News 020
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 02/10/2026I was interviewed longform about the ideas expressed in the Boston Globe piece, so I elaborate, with stories, evidence, and charitable reconstruction of why administrators feel the need to hire more of them, and contract more software. I also introduce the "assessment-industrial complex." 041
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 30/09/2026I don’t know why but for some reason, my YouTube algorithm today thinks that I want to see a jiujitsu fighter beat up a line of frat boys. 140
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Malcolm Gladwell observes that city of Los Angeles has the same population as Berlin but Berlin has >18,000 police officers and Los Angeles has 8,500. But Los Angeles already spends double per capita on its police department as Berlin. If LA staffed LAPD at Berlin levels, it’d bankrupt the city. 011
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Just like that I suddenly have a free ticket to My Chemical Romance at the Hollywood Bowl. It was supposed to be a family trip, but the teenager is now out. Apparently, “it’s a concept album about the progression of cancer from diagnosis to death” wasn’t the winning pitch I thought it was. 040
Reposted by Barry LamJustin Weinberg @dailynous.com · 24/09/2026A few adjustments still need to be made, but Daily Nous is back online...dailynous.comBack - Daily NousOne day, I’m posting here about how to address AI risks, the next, Daily Nous suffers from a “critical error” and goes down for over […] 1154
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 23/09/2026If you decide that you don’t want your affluent kids segregated from poor kids, because you think they’ll make friends and learn a lot by being around all kinds of kids, people on the internet will accuse you of “using poor kids for the moral development of your rich kids.” 050
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 22/09/2026None of us know the right level of deprivation of good things we can financially provide for our children that is ideal for their moral development. We know there is a cutoff that is abusive, and another one that is corrupting. But everywhere in between is a muddled mess. 060
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 21/09/2026This thread 100%, and not just because I was also born in 1979. 000
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 20/09/2026My niche take of the day is that pocket screw jigs ruined craftsmanship in home carpentry. I’m surprised the New Yorker turned down this pitch. 040
Reposted by Barry LamLindsay Brainard @lindsaybrainard.bsky.social · 18/09/2026... Are you ready for it? The Philosophy of Taylor Swift is out next week! 🥰 Now available for preorder: a.co/d/02Yq3X9P 052
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 17/09/2026Gotta say I’m in my late 40s and pretty good at staying on top of the news, but I don’t remember any midterm conventions. 010
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 15/09/2026My understanding, and its limited because I don't watch Carlson, is that the true isolationist wing of MAGA have become single-issue voters this term, and it is anti-Israeli wars. It trumps even border issues. 010
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 11/09/2026That's all right, no one ever notices the asian dude in the background anyways. 220
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 10/09/2026Thanks Justin, don’t know if you gave the non-paywalled link, but it is here, not at the Boston Globe main site. globecollegetown.substack.com/p/higher-ed-...globecollegetown.substack.comCollege campuses need to be liberated from their administratorsHigher ed is being strangled by absurd and costly rules. What message is that sending to students? 110
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 10/09/2026Oracle, Workday, and PeopleSoft are the secret robber barons of the new guilded age, but we won’t have railroads and skyscrapers to show for it in a hundred years. In fact, we’ll have nothing as their garbage dissolves into cyberspace. 051
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 09/09/2026Has faculty administrative load even been eased, which is the whole purpose of administration? 010
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 09/09/2026Please every academic, let the world know, has ordering books, distributing a syllabus, advising a student club, th most basic administrative tasks, become more or less efficient in the era of millions spent on software and administrators? globecollegetown.substack.com/p/higher-ed-...globecollegetown.substack.comCollege campuses need to be liberated from their administratorsHigher ed is being strangled by absurd and costly rules. What message is that sending to students? 2135
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 09/09/2026I wrote for the Boston Globe about the scandalous higher-ed spending on digital infrastructure that has increased inefficiency. globecollegetown.substack.com/p/higher-ed-...globecollegetown.substack.comCollege campuses need to be liberated from their administratorsHigher ed is being strangled by absurd and costly rules. What message is that sending to students? 072
Reposted by Barry LamShen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 09/09/2026It's scandalous that for-profit companies like SpringerNature and Elsevier rent-seek from academic publishing and profit off of our labor. I'm also convinced by @hiphination.bsky.social that it's just as scandalous that for-profit digital infrastructure companies do the same in higher education.globecollegetown.substack.comCollege campuses need to be liberated from their administratorsHigher ed is being strangled by absurd and costly rules. What message is that sending to students? 152
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 08/09/2026We had family movie weekend and I got outvoted. We ended up seeing The End of Oak Street and I’m royally pissed. 001
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 28/08/2026First Dolly, then Tim Curry, and now the voice of Optimus Prime. Not a good week for 80s kids. 240
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 26/08/2026HR trainings be like: You must score 90 or above to pass this training. (56 min to go). What is the best reason not to bully your co-workers? a) good reason 1 b) good reason 2 c) good reason 3 040
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 25/08/2026Just imagining what it’s like to be journeymen mixed doubles players making $100,000 a year hoping to make it $120,000 and seeing Serena Williams and Carlos Alcaraz across the net from you in Round 1. 150
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 25/08/2026At Princeton Anthony Appiah started intro to M&E with “On Sense and Reference.” 120
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 25/08/2026You don't mean this Parker. The federal government provides essential services, even in the Trump era. Millions of people rely on it for health care, food, safety, medical and scientific research, national parks, and law enforcement. The US civil service are our heroes. 000
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 23/08/2026What if, a philosophy journal will publish your AI-written article, but only in Gibberlink? 010
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 23/08/2026The name “Bruce” peaked in 1952 and declined since; it is well outside the top 500 baby names. Meanwhile, many old names for girls like “Sophia” swung back to #1 for Gen Zers. I think it’d be great to see “Bruce” be the name of a new generation. Any other old-timey names due for a comeback? 111
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 21/08/2026Or a substack post. hiphination.substack.com/p/what-if-th...hiphination.substack.comWhat if the Culture Wars had the Ethics of Actual War?Proportionality, Necessity, and Legitimate Targets 000
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 21/08/2026Wrote up my last skeet idea into a short post. hiphination.substack.com/p/what-if-th...hiphination.substack.comWhat if the Culture Wars had the Ethics of Actual War?Proportionality, Necessity, and Legitimate Targets 050
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 21/08/2026I’m starting to think the culture wars could use some ethics of actual wars. A little proportionality and necessity, distinctions between legitimate and illegitimate targets, and defensive versus punitive versus aggressive aims…maybe people will be more responsible. 180
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 16/08/2026Delta faucets makes completely nonstandard sizes and threads of nuts and bolts so that a $2 repair is impossible to make. You have to buy a $50 nut from Delta’s website or buy a brand new $150 faucet. Is there a kind of capitalism I can support that says that this is bad? 040
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 14/08/2026They’ve been shitty for a month. Just absolutely garbage pitching. 010
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 14/08/2026I am currently watching both Suits and Reacher. Am I basic? 020
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 13/08/2026Oh they would never publish a magazine article or book about such a life. 130
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 12/08/2026Maybe basing hiring policy and decisions in academia on the basis of social media trends was part of the problem and also not part of the solution. 020
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 12/08/2026I taught at Vassar 2006-2022, was chair in 2020-2022. My stories put Tyler Austin Harper’s to shame, and every one of my colleagues would nod in agreement. Those were wild times. 130
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 12/08/2026A decade of austerity measures at SLACs eased in 2020 because of George Floyd. But the top-down way admin implemented hiring forced the hand of understaffed, desperate departments. Candidates had to be everything, not just good biologists or historians. They had to be saviors. It was driven by admin 020
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 10/08/2026I spoked to Heather Bigley of BYU Radio about the 1960 film Spartacus, and concluded that the message of the film is that the vicious are incapable of understanding the virtuous. The motivations of the latter are alien to the former. open.spotify.com/episode/6V0k...open.spotify.comSpartacus: Vicious v VirtuousVoiceover: Movies that Move Us · Episode 020
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 03/08/2026The skeet was fully meant in the way you are thinking but I’m afraid the entirety of BlueSky took it literally. 010
Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 02/08/2026Its a fantastic show, shaped my moral sensibilities. 000